Strickland is dismayed with the forecast that calls for the drought gripping much of South Carolina and the Southeast to continue through March.

"It's been terrible. Any way you look at it, it's been terrible," said Strickland, whose family has been in farming for 100 years. "It's a real bleak outlook for farmers and ranchers."

Strickland's hay fields yielded about only 30 percent of a normal crop. His creek dried up and cattle thinned as the drought worsened through 2007.

The U.S. Drought Monitor has more than 45 percent of the state in its most serious drought designation of exceptional. The worst conditions are roughly north and west of a line from Aiken to just north of Columbia to Dillon.

A year ago, only the far northwest corner of the state was reporting abnormally dry conditions, the lowest level of drought reported by the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Every major reporting site in the state was at least 10 inches below normal for yearly rainfall as of Monday. Greer was 21.19 inches below normal rain and 11 inches under its 2006 total, while Columbia was 18.51 inches below normal for 2007 and 13 inches below its rainfall total for last year.

North Myrtle Beach was 12.69 inches below normal for 2007, while Florence was 11.03 inches below normal and Charleston was 10.14 off its yearly pace.

National forecasters predict much of the state should receive at least a half-inch of rain by the end of the week. But the winter precipitation outlook released earlier this month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was much more bleak, calling for below normal precipitation for most of the Southeast.

And a dry winter means things will go downhill much quicker when warmer weather returns, said Tim Armstrong, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Wilmington, N.C.

"If we go into the spring dry, it can get really nasty going into summer," Armstrong said.

As the Christmas season draws to a close, Strickland is facing a major decision. He may have to cut his heard of 300 cattle down to as few as 60.

He has one more thing he is asking everyone to do. "Pray," Strickland said. "The next couple weeks will tell the tale."

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